Semantics. Until any langiage compiles to pure 1s and 0s, it's all about
bytecode. Even C compiles to assembler which is really just a low level
bytecode.
Just a note:
C compiles to opcodes. opcodes are 1s and 0s directly interpreted by CPU.
Same applies to assembler. (asm->opcodes). The true is that C has nothing to do with assembly language.
Note on inline C assembly:
When you use inline C assembler several thing happen:
1) C compiles itself to assembler
2) Your inline assembly code is then inserted properly
3) Asm compiles to opcodes (And assembler compiler is required: MASM - used by ms compilers, TASM-borland etc..)
When no inline assembly used C code compiles directlly to opcodes.